Video of Stevie Wonder playing the instrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQtEElCV2lY
A new instrument found unusual success
51–60 of 112 posts
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#52This kind of has the sound of someone playing an acoustic guitar patch on a keyboard. It seems to lack the expressive dynamics you would expect with a guitar, almost like the velocity is clamped.
It looks like it is mostly played with hammer-ons? Maybe is someone plays it one-handed and adds a pick you get back to the guitar dynamic range. But then what's the point (may as well go with a lap steel guitar then).
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#53I'm surprised they got the patent on this thing - seems pretty similar to a Chapman stick.
The commonality is "string instrument with many strings", which would include a lot of things (electric hammered dulcimers for example). This, however, has important differences in design and operation, the most significant of which is the use of "an electronic muting system to dampen unfretted strings and minimize the impact of sympathetic vibrations."
Ha ha, 21st Century autoharp.
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#54I'm surprised they got the patent on this thing - seems pretty similar to a Chapman stick.
If I understand right, the Harpejji uses individual per-string pickups and uses an electronic muting system. Touching a string to any of the frets completes a circuit that causes the onboard electronics to unmute that particular string. That's pretty unique. The Chapman Stick just uses a mechanical damper where the nut is so the open strings don't ring out, and fairly standard magnetic pickups.
That is clever.
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#55Harry Partch must be grooving in his grave. Bit of shame he didn't live another 20 years, really, it'd be interesting to see what he could have done with more electronics and synths.
Partch was into microtonal music. And created far more interesting instruments.
None of this chromatically scaled stuff would be very interesting to him.
Partch's instruments in case anyone's interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UZjhTlGT0o&t=672s
They really have to be seen an heard.
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#56Video of Stevie Wonder playing the instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQtEElCV2lY
This Bohemian Rhapsody rendition shows the experience of playing it well [https://youtu.be/Wr87Z7rZiWE]
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#57I know a guy who invented something similar 20 years earlier.
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#58I'm surprised they got the patent on this thing - seems pretty similar to a Chapman stick.
If I understand right, the Harpejji uses individual per-string pickups and uses an electronic muting system. Touching a string to any of the frets completes a circuit that causes the onboard electronics to unmute that particular string. That's pretty unique. The Chapman Stick just uses a mechanical damper where the nut is so the open strings don't ring out, and fairly standard magnetic pickups.
Fair enough, that does sound novel!
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#59This needs to be multiscale. The treble sounds strained and whiny, because it's at too much tension, because it's too long. The bass sounds farty and unfocused, because it's at too little tension, because it's too short. There's a good reason bass guitars are bigger than guitars.
Multi-scale guitars have been out of patent for years now. And if the harpejji was invented in 2007, then I believe it should go out of patents next year? I hope the resulting competition makes them up their game.
Re: A new instrument found unusual success
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a fan of patents, but in that case, it's not like some bigco seeking to perpetually extend monopolistic rights on some product - the inventor is alive, they made what seems like a genuine contribution to the world, and that contribution is very concrete and complete - not some hollow vaguely generic not directly usable "design". So it's actually a case where patents are a good fit: the inventor gets to decide…
That might be good for the inventor, but that whole thinking that the inventor’s rights trump the rest of the world’s is pre-modern. As we have seen from the last couple of decades, it is always better for consumers when the “official” product exists alongside some cheaper version that one can order from e.g. Aliexpress.
Owning a harpejji is not exactly a human right or anything. Let the guy get some money off the massive R&D and creativity that went into the instrument before kicking it over to Behringer to release the $300 clone.